Family: Myrtaceae (Myrtle Family)
Native range: Eastern Australia through Malaysia and Myanmar (Burma).
Description: An upright, slender tree to 80 or 100 feet, usually single-trunked but may develop multiple trunks. Trunk and branches covered with thick layers of whitish, papery bark, peeling off in sheets. Leaves are dull green, 2 to 8 inches long and 3/8 to 1/2 inch wide, stiff, and highly aromatic when crushed. Flowers are showy and produced in bottlebrush-like spikes with prominent ivory-white stamens. Dust-like seeds are enclosed in rounded, tightly clustered, persistent, grayish-brown capsules produced along the stems.
Ecological threat: Melaleuca causes both ecological and public health problems. It rapidly colonizes freshwater wetlands, almost completely displacing native vegetation and degrading wildlife habitat. Any physical disturbance, such as fire, freezes, felling, and even herbicide, liberates millions of seeds from a single tree. The tree can reproduce from seed when only one or two years old and is still undergoing rapid population expansion in the Big Cypress National Preserve and the northern portion of Everglades National Park. Melaleuca also constitutes a significant health hazard because the flowers and new foliage produce airborne emanations that cause severe asthma-like symptoms in sensitive people.
Distribution in Florida: Central and southern Florida, but principally Collier, Miami-Dade, and mainland Monroe counties.
Background: There is some controversy over whom should be credited (or blamed) with the first introduction of Melaleuca in Florida. Seeds from France were distributed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1900 and in 1906, Dr. John Gifford, a Miami forester, imported seeds from Australia. In 1912, Allen Andrews planted a Melaleuca forest at Estero, Florida from seeds that he received from Australia. It was Andrews’ planting that supplied the initial seed source that began the spread of Melaleuca over vast portions of southern Florida wetlands. Honey produced from Melaleuca flowers has a penetrating, objectionable odor but is used in livestock feed. |
